The Fairy Godmother
by Quill-and-Parchment
Summary: The one time Nico di Angelo admitted he was like a fairy godmother. Nico/OC friendship. One-shot.


**The Fairy Godmother**

_by_

_Quill-and-Parchment_

Nico di Angelo did _not_ know what drove him to this. What he did know is, this must be the second thing he regrets most in his life just three steps from Bianca's death. No, make that two. And his sister's death was not of his own choosing, so…This would be the single most regretful decision he'd ever make in his short life.

But the future is cruel. So now here he was, a Goth-looking kid dressed all in black who looked like he had just escaped from the scene of an axe murder staggering across the dark streets of Miami, holding and pressing down on his bleeding shoulder while trying to keep his vision from tilting _too_ much. Even as he walked, he could hear the _tong-tong_ noise of his blood falling against the pavement. The child of Hades gritted his teeth. He could not risk a shadow-travel; he was too weak for that. His drachmas are gone.

He was trapped. Trapped, injured and alone.

Isn't that just _dandy_?

Unfortunately for him, his foot caught on something and he tripped, falling face first into the stinking mud. Yet he didn't get up again, suddenly too dizzy and tired to do so. His eyelids felt as though there were boulders pulling it down, and they were sore beyond belief. He needed sleep, Nico thought groggily. Yes, sleep was important. A part of him screamed for him to get up, and he struggled to remember why falling asleep out here would be a bad idea. It certainly didn't _feel_ like it.

There was a sound like a sharp gasp, and Nico's eyes flew open, adrenaline suddenly pumping. He snapped his head up as fast as he could…and found himself gazing at a pair of shoes. Following it upward, the boy connected them to thin, pale legs, then a navy skirt, then a dark hoodie, and finally, an Asian face with the hood thrown up. Almond-shaped eyes widened as they looked at him, peeking from behind half-moon glasses. The staring person's mouth was opened as wide as it would go.

"You would catch flies like that," Nico muttered, not sure where _that_ had come from. The girl shut her mouth as he spoke, but she still stared at him, and he wondered fuzzily, annoyed, what was so worth goggling at.

She started backing away before fully turning and ran in the opposite direction, dashing away as fast as her legs could carry him. Nico stared after her before groaning and tried to push himself up against the wall, but that was about as much as he could manage. Breathing hard, he closed his eyes and tried to slow his thundering heart.

I should never have followed that hellhound, the child of Hades thought as sleep closed in. It didn't take long for him to lose the fight with exhaustion and blood loss.

He didn't see the girl who came walking back, bit her lip as she stared at him with fear and indecision before hauling him up and moved out of that valley.

**(**)**

"You are not leaving," the woman in the white, simple housedress said flatly.

"You don't understand –" Nico began again, nearly desperately this time, but he shut his mouth. It wouldn't make a difference, he thought as he looked at the steely dark eyes of his savior. He wasn't leaving, and that was final. As if to agree with that realization, a cough welled up in the boy's throat and escaped before he could force it down.

There was no triumph in the woman's eyes. She pressed her lips together to form a tight, thin line. "Rest," she said, her Chinese origins clear in the accented tone she used. "Do _not_ move. I will drug you if you do." Her tone was so matter-of-fact that it was almost creepy.

With one last warning look at Nico, the Asian woman (Mrs. Le, as he'd learned) vanished into the kitchen, preferably to get cough medicine. Nico sighed as he glanced out the window of the seaside house. The ocean was just in view. If a hurricane comes, this construction wouldn't be standing, he was sure of it. Why did they have to pick a house so near the shore?

Of course, there would be no hurricane, but still –

The clinking sound of a china soup spoon connecting with something of the same material called his attention. He glanced up, hand automatically going to the pocket of his jeans (make that shorts; he's been stripped of the tattered clothes when he woke up) but relaxed as the girl he'd seen before passing out walked in. She looked at Nico for a moment, not long enough to be uncomfortable, before setting the bowl she was carrying in front of him.

Nico glanced at it. New England clam chowder, he noted. Not that seafood had been his all-time favorite, but…

He grabbed the bowl and all but inhaled the contents. It had been long since he was able to eat, and the aroma was intoxicating. Five minutes later, the son of Hades set the completely-empty bowl down, nodding at the girl in thanks. She didn't smile back.

For a whole minute, they sat staring at each other. When Nico was starting to wonder if she was mute, she raised her eyebrows at the bowl. "You sure are hungry," the girl commented.

Nico shrugged. His ankle was twisted, his wrist broken, and his pocket empty of anything useful. He couldn't use a phone, since he didn't want to draw monsters to the family who'd helped him, which means he couldn't contact Camp Half-Blood or help of any kind. Stranded and grounded (in a sense), Nico figured he might as well grace the girl with an answer if it was only because he had nothing better to do.

"There aren't many luxuries in the way I live," he said casually.

The girl glanced at the kitchen door. "I would be careful what I say around here," she said softly, dropping her voice. "Mom might just contact an orphanage sooner than expected."

If he'd participated in and survived a war along with countless other skirmishes with monsters the size of three-story houses, Nico doubted a few men in suits would scare the living daylight out of him, but he nodded. For all they knew, he was just a guy on the street, preferably homeless and just had a major fight with some gang or other. It was best he keeps the impression like that.

"What's your name?" the girl continued, cocking her head to the side. She did that a lot, Nico noticed.

"Tell me yours first," he retorted.

Dark eyes hidden behind square glasses studied him for a brief second before nodding. "I'm Lynda. With a 'y'."

Fair enough. "Nico." He didn't tell her his last name, and she didn't ask. She also didn't ask about how he ended up on the street, even though he could see the question in her eyes. Lynda didn't appear to be one to pry, and Nico was grateful. She left him alone after that, bringing the empty bowl back into the kitchen.

Nico stared out the window at the stormy, raining sky. The weatherman said it wouldn't let up for another week.

Bull.

**

* * *

**

"You have a sibling?"

The question took Nico by surprise. He picked his head up from the Rubik's cube he'd been twiddling in his hands to look at Lynda, sitting across from him in the living room. She wasn't looking at him, though, instead jotting down some notes on a piece of paper. Their eyes rarely met for some reason. Nico suspected she was afraid of him. A few children had in fact cried when they looked at him in the eye.

Nico considered the question. He could lie. He could shrug noncommittally, but… "Yeah. One sister."

"She older than you?"

"Yeah."

"You like her?"

He was getting annoyed by the interrogation, but he answered anyway. "Yeah. Very much so." Then his eyes narrowed. "Are you recording what I'm saying?

Now Lynda looked up at him, and her gaze made him feel stupid for asking. "Why would I? I'm writing about something else. Outline for English paper." She held up the notepad, even though he couldn't read it from this distance. "It's called _casual conversation_. Heard of it?"

Nico rolled his eyes, staying silent. Lynda shrugged at his lack of response and returned to her notes.

For the next few minutes, they stayed like that. Nico once again fiddled with the old, beaten-up Rubik's cube. He turned it around several times, not really knowing what he was doing, but it suddenly solved itself in his hands.

"Only Devin managed to have the patience with that."

The words made Nico look up. Lynda was eyeing the cube with something that was between respect, love and sadness. Before Nico could think that she was insane, she continued, "Devin is my little brother. He's two years younger than me. He…we lost him in a car accident. Him and my dad." Lynda glanced to her left. Nico followed her gaze to see a small picture frame. From behind the glass, an Asian man who looked somewhat like Lynda gazed out. Standing at his side, grinning widely, was a boy. He seemed nine or ten and was the exact replica of his father.

Nico didn't know what to say. Consolation wasn't something he was good at. That would be Bianca's department. But Lynda saved him from it. "I miss them," she said softly, staring at the picture with a look of longing in her eyes. "I just broke Devin's toy car. I haven't said sorry yet."

She bit her lip and turned back to the paper she was holding. She held it in a white-knuckled grasp. Nico glanced away, out the window, past the palm trees and at the gray shores. He hadn't said sorry to Bianca either. Not before she died. But that was because he was a demigod, a son of Hades. Lynda was mortal. She wouldn't be able to see her brother again. Not unless she, too, passes on.

The door opened to admit a tired Dr. Le, and Nico's thoughts flew off that subject as he watched Lynda helped her mother bring her grocery into the kitchen. He tried to get up, but the doctor glared at him, and he gave in.

**

* * *

**

His wounds were healing nicely. He could now stand and walk with just a slight limp. Nico was ready to go find the nearest safe-house on his own. There were a few demigod children scattered across Miami, he knew, and if he could find them, he would be safe. Camp Half-Blood was better than this place. At least there he would be absolutely sure no monster would sniff him out.

So Nico waited for everything to calm down that night. Near five o'clock in the morning, he got up from his bed and threw on the new jeans and long-sleeved shirt Dr. Le had been so kind to supply him with. Grabbing an umbrella, he glanced out the window. There was still a slight drizzling, but it would have to do. In his pocket was the black mechanical pencil that would turn into a Stygian sword (it lacked the return-to-your-place mechanism of Percy's Riptide, but it would have to do). He was ready.

He was halfway out the window when Nico paused, glancing behind him. There was Lynda, standing in the doorway in her nightgown and black hoodie, her arms crossed and her eyebrow raised. "Going somewhere?" she asked. There was no smugness in her voice.

Nico thought about jumping out the window and make a run for it, but he decided to stick around for a bit. He climbed back in. "Yeah," he admitted. "I'm sneaking out."

"Why? Are we such freaks you have to escape at any given chance?" Lynda asked. It didn't sound sarcastic. It was just matter-of-fact. It was just the way she spoke.

The son of Hades shook his head. "No. But I'm a liability. As long as I stick around, you and your mother will be in danger." He wasn't lying. He didn't lie about things like this. But Lynda, being the perfectly normal mortal that she was, would of course not buy it. Rather, she saw it the wrong way.

Her other eyebrow joined the first. "Don't worry. The police station is right next door. If those gang members decided to come back, there would be war."

Nico shook his head. "Not like that. My world isn't the same as yours. There is no police in the world that could stop them." He didn't understand why he was wasting his escape time trying to explain to a stranger he'd known for precisely four days. A _kid_, no less. He could knock her out with a blow to the temple. All demigods have at least some level of training in unarmed combat, because your swords are bound to break sometimes.

Lynda opened her mouth to speak, but she seemed to have second thoughts. "Give me something in exchange," she said. "Something valuable. Something that I'll be so grateful about I'll let you go in silence."

Nico stared at her. She was blackmailing him? Annoyance and anger rose in his throat. He was about to tell her to scram when he thought better of it. Nico nodded, remembering what she'd told him before.

"Fine," he agreed. "I'll do it. C'mon. It's best we go outside."

Lynda raised an eyebrow, but if she had suspicions about a boy in black inviting her outside in the middle of a rainy night, she said nothing. Nodding, the girl walked downstairs, Nico following her and thinking about what he was about to do – and who he was about to do it in front of. He thought about clonking her over the head, dragging her into the house and makes a run for it, but she must have trusted him more than "just a bit" to do what he told her. He didn't want to violate that trust.

Besides, if he was lucky, she might not even see it.

They dropped by the kitchen first, Nico grabbing three packets of Cokes and the leftover ice cream chocolate cake in the freezer. At Lynda's look, he shook his head. "Trust me," he whispered.

It was absurd, but she nodded again, mutely. They tiptoed across the living room, since Dr. Le's room was right next door. Lynda threw open the door and the two slipped outside after putting on their shoes.

They must've looked weird, Nico thought as he walked further down the beach until they were far away from the few civilian houses nearby, two kids walking in the raining night, one holding Coke and cake while the other dressed in a nightgown and wearing bright red flip-flops, holding an umbrella over them both.

Nico figured the girl must've been mad, going along with him like this. But it was her trust that kept him from double-crossing her right there, right then. They walked until they reached a palm tree that stood twenty-five feet from the ocean itself. There, a hole was dug beneath the tree, enough to be a grave. It was made by Nico the day before while Lynda and Dr. Le were away doing something downtown. He was about to use it to send a message to another child of Hades (his dad broke the pact anyway; isn't that a surprise) back at camp to inform them of his status, but the plan had changed.

He motioned for Lynda to stop two feet away from the grave. She was starting to look uneasy, but he ignored her. Nico walked forward and dumped the sacrifices into the grave, muttering the usual chant that would raise the dead.

At first, nothing happened. But as Nico felt his strength starting to sap, mist spilled forth. Lynda gasped, pedaling backward, but Nico looked at her wearily. He held up a hand, motioning for her to stay, and she looked at him like he was off his rockers. But she stayed.

In moments, a figure formed from the mist, still inside the pit. Two figures. One boy and one man, Asian, nearly identical. Lynda gasped again, the sound strangled and terrified this time. Nico thought she would turn and run, but one of the two shadows spoke, confused.

"Lynda?"

It was the man. His voice was dry, echoing, but it was there. And his daughter stopped her retreat, staring at him with wide eyes. Then slowly, slowly, Lynda stepped forward. One, two, three…until she was standing in front of the two. Both stared back at her with a mix between confusion and amusement, until the boy giggled.

"You'll catch flies like that," he joked, echoing Nico days before.

Lynda closed her mouth, but her eyes grew bigger, if that was possible. "Um, I…" she turned to Nico. "_What_ are you?"

"It'll take too long to explain," Nico replied. He cocked his head at the two ghosts. "You said you wanted to meet them, right? Take your time." With that, he turned and walked away, trying not to look back as Lynda stared at him with a betrayed look. That _was_ what she wanted, and it was better she confronts them now than when she was dead. She couldn't live on with guilt forever.

For the next half-hour, Nico huddled underneath another palm tree thirty feet from Lynda. The rain was letting up, but he was cold already. He should have stolen a jacket or something. There wouldn't be going back now. The sky was starting to light up. He didn't want to waste another day there. He had to report to camp. There is still the fate of that Hermes child he needed to inform them.

The rain suddenly stopped. Nico glanced up in surprise only to realize Lynda was shielding him from it with the umbrella she'd taken from him. Her eyes were red, but she was smiling.

For a few moments, they stood in silence. Then Lynda broke it. She handed him the umbrella and took off her hoodie, then gave it to him. "You should pack more carefully next time when you're trying to run," she said, her voice raw.

Nico took both, looking at her. He didn't know what to say. What _could_ he say? His brain didn't provide him with anything useful, at all. Once again, Lynda saved him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulder and hugged him fiercely. Taken by surprise, Nico froze, but as the seconds ticked past, he relaxed. Awkwardly, he raised a hand and put it on her back.

Lynda let go, wiping her eyes. "Thanks," she said, smiling. "Thanks for everything. Now run along. Mom will wake up soon. I'll make up something for you."

Nico nodded mutely. "Thanks," he managed, slipping the hoodie over his head and took the umbrella. They stared at each other for a little bit longer before Nico started walking past her. Lynda stepped aside for him.

"Hey!" Her shout drew him back. He turned to look at her. "You still didn't answer my question. What are you? A fairy godmother who granted my wishes?"

Nico paused. Had he been asked that by anyone else, he would either shudder uncontrollably or walk back and punch them in the nose. But this wasn't just anyone.

"You can say that," he said carefully before jogging away, kicking up wet sand in his path.

Even as he ran straight into a wall, melting into the shadows and going back to Manhattan, the childish laughter of a girl forgiven and the smell of Miami sea spray still reached him.

* * *

_I swear to you, it's not romance! It's friendship. Slight friendship. Between two strangers. Yeah, that's it. _


End file.
